Whitney Bogart feels love, resentment from teammates entering her fourth & final Paralympics

WHITNEY BOGART
Sport: Goalball
Event: Women’s
Classification: Visual impairment
Age: 38
Hometown: Marathon, ON
Residence: Ottawa
Fourth Paralympics

VIEW WHITNEY’S COMPETITION SCHEDULE HERE.

By Dan Plouffe

Whitney Bogart is the Canadian women’s goalball team’s punching bag.

That’s true whether she’s absorbing chirps from teammates at practice, or competing on the court.

Bogart is one of Team Canada’s three starters who all live in Ottawa.

She doesn’t take a lot of throws for the unit, but she sure takes a lot of bumps.

As the team’s top defender, often lined up in the centre position, Bogart dives on the floor over and over again to block shots from the opposing team, who fire about 100 per game.

It’s a heart-and-soul kind of role, and Bogart acts as a reliable leader who grounds the team thanks to her even-keeled personality. She’s a veteran and a legend of the sport in Canada – you’d just never know it from the way her teammates treat her.

At practice, teasing, taunts and jabs abound between the players, and Bogart is definitely the most frequent target. The chirping is often directed at “Team Mom” as they like to call Bogart, who is Team Canada’s eldest member by a whole five months.

“We keep joking that we’re tearing Whitney down, and then eventually we’re gonna build her back up,” smiles Bogart’s teammate (and sister-in-law) Amy Burk.

“It’s just been years,” Bogart chimes in. “I keep getting told that we’re gonna build you back up now, and then it just doesn’t happen.”

In reality, the ribbing is playful between long-time teammates who are immensely comfortable with one another. Burk and Bogart will be competing in their fourth Paralympics together in Paris.

“It’s a good team,” Burk underlines. “We can have fun and enjoy those moments, but when we walk onto that court or walk into the gym for a training session, we can flip that switch and we’re right into serious mode.”

There was no moment more serious than the Parapan American Games last fall in Chile when Canada needed to win the gold medal to secure a berth in the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

Bogart had decided after the Tokyo Games that the next Paralympic cycle would be her last, which upped the stakes even higher at the last-chance qualifier. Canada ultimately came through in dramatic fashion to win the first Parapan Am title of Bogart’s career.

Read More: Team Canada goalball women move from public school gym to Paralympic stage

“My mindset was to be done this September, not last December,” signals the full-time athlete and mother of two.

Bogart found it overwhelming to think about finding a job after her athletic career would be complete, and finally determined that she wouldn’t focus her energy on that at all in the lead-up to her final Paralympics.

“I am strictly just focusing on family and goalball, and then after Paris, it’ll be an after-Paris problem,” she smiles.

Goalball has been a central part of Bogart’s life for the majority of it. Originally from Marathon in northern Ontario, the athlete who has albinism was first introduced to the sport when she moved to Brantford to attend the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind.

Bogart joined Team Ontario in 2002 and then represented Canada for the first time in 2005. On top of her Paralympic appearances in London, Rio and Tokyo, she has also competed at four Parapan Am Games, winning bronze medals each time before the breakthrough gold in Santiago.

At her side for all the big moments, including a 2011 International Blind Sport Association world title, was Burk. The long-time friends and teammates became family when Burk married Bogart’s twin brother Tyler (and she assumed her teammate’s birth family name in the process).

The sisters-in-law each have two children of similar ages, and they live a few minutes from each other in Nepean. Their families sometimes travel to watch their competitions – they’ll be there in Paris in full force – but when they don’t, Bogart and Burk enjoy having each other as a connection to home when they’re away for long periods.

“We both have the goal of wanting to get Canada on the podium,” adds Burk, 34. “Just being able to share that with her is pretty exciting.”

Emma Reinke is the third Ottawa-based Team Canada player. Set to compete in her second Paralympics at age 26, Reinke is in the midst of her seventh season with the national team. She says both Bogart and Burk have been “really crucial” to her development.

”I moved to Ottawa so I could play with them and learn from them,” notes Reinke, who studies at Carleton University when her goalball schedule is lighter. “Important to my development on and off court, mentally, physically, having people who have been there to tell me what to expect – they’re big.

“They’re both big mentors of mine, and big inspirations. I look up to them both very much.”

Reinke says that Bogart’s looming retirement adds a little more urgency and motivation to Canada’s quest to return to the Paralympic podium, which hasn’t happened since the Canadian women won back-to-back gold in 2000 and 2004.

“I really don’t want to go home empty-handed,” Reinke underlines. “I’m really sad that she’s retired after this. For her sake – and I mean, for everybody’s sake, but her, for sure – I want us to be able to make it a really special thing, and I think that it’s going to be special.

“I haven’t quite processed (Bogart retiring) yet, just because it is going to be kind of emotional, I think.”

Beyond the surface of her teammates’ torments comes a deep appreciation for Bogart’s contributions to Canadian goalball. And Bogart knows it too. She concedes that what she loves most about her sport after a quarter-century of involvement remains the team dynamic.

And while the Paris Paralympics certainly offers a showcase opportunity to put a cap on her career in front of her family and supporters, she says what it all boils down to for her is much more simple.

“I want to be the best in the world,” Bogart underlines. “I love representing Canada. I think it’s super cool what we get to do. And I just want to be the best in the world.”

– with files from Jackson Starr

COMPETITION SCHEDULE: